Harry Croft

1898 was a sad year for the family of George Turner Croft and his wife Catherine Stokes.

Catherine was the daughter of Richard Stokes and his wife Catherine Tigh(e). She was born in London in 1845.  Her mother died when Catherine was 9 and the family drifted apart. In 1861 she was working as a housemaid in Hertfordshire for William Ward “Landed Proprietor” and his family of eight children. She was one of twelve servants. In 1871 she married George Turner Croft, a carpenter.

The young family emigrated about 1875 and after a few years in Canterbury, they came on to Wellington.

On New Year’s day 1898 at Wellington Hospital, their son Harry Croft died of pneumonia. He was 20 years old. The newspaper said that he died suddenly after a short illness. The funeral procession departed from Wellington Hospital at 3pm on 4th January for Karori Cemetery.

About two weeks later on 14th January, a building owned by George Croft at Petone caught fire. The fire was thought to have been caused by a spark from a bush fire in the neighbourhood. When the alarm was given, the Gear Meat Company’s Brigade arrived and attached a number of lengths of hose to a connection in the Company’s yard. This was too short and when the Petone Brigade arrived, their hose was joined on. Once water pressure was applied, several lengths of the Brigade’s hose burst. All efforts were deemed useless and in a short while the building, and a £50 organ built by their son, were destroyed.

Just 5 months later on 27th May, Catherine died at her home on the Esplanade in Petone, aged 52.

George then married Charlotte Johnston on 15th February 1900 but they only lived together for three weeks as George thought he had “caught a tartar”*. George separated from Charlotte, allowing her £1 per week maintenance. He then travelled to England with two of his children, and returned via South Africa where he served in the war for about a year. On his return, he discovered that Charlotte had gone to South Africa and bigamously married John William Chapman. In 1905, George filed for and was granted a divorce from Charlotte. He died in Auckland in 1919.

Also interred in this plot is their daughter Grace Catherine and her husband Duncan Morrison.

*we had to look this up: someone that turns out to be unexpectedly unpleasant or formidable

Croft Family Plot
Croft family portrait without brother Harry or mother Catherine
Catherine Croft

James Boucher Winton

James Boucher Winton – erected by his friends and comrades

James was born in 1864 in Greenock, Renfrew, Scotland. He was the youngest child of John Winton and his wife Jane Kerr. His mother died when he was 3 and his father remarried.

He came to New Zealand about 1881, aged 19 and by 1888 he was working on Cuba Street as a crockeryware merchant for “Winton and McLauchlan”. It was here that Terrence Gormley, sometimes cab proprietor, was charged and dismissed with stealing James’ pony harness.

In the 1890 directory, James described himself as an importer. The company opened a second branch on Lambton Quay in 1898.

James was also a member of the Wellington Cycle Corps, one of its “most popular and prominent members”.

He acted as Honourable Secretary of the first ever Wellington Cycle Corps ball in 1899 in the Masonic Hall “The decorations were tasteful and elaborate, conspicuous among them being the crest of the corps,  a wheel crossed with arms, while bicycles suspended around the walls of the hall denoted the avocation of the corps” (Evening Post, 27 July 1899)

James died in May 1900. The newspaper reported that he suffered from “an affection of the heart” and that he succumbed to it at his residence on Dixon Street.

James died intestate and his estate comprised £15 cash, two promissory notes of £26-13-4 each, £6 effects and mining shares £13.

He was interred at Karori Cemetery with full military honours. The coffin was carried into the cemetery on a gun carriage  attended by a detachment of D Battalion. The First Battalion Wellington Rifles furnished the firing party of 19 men and one sergeant who fired volleys over the grave. The Garrison Band also attended.

Personal friends rallied to organise a headstone for his grave. The Cycle Corps donated £2 to the fund.

James Boucher Winton Plot
Cycle corps 1909

John Thew

John was born in 1824 and Mary was born in 1828.  They were both from Northumberland. Their first son was born in 1859. In 1871 they were living in Durham where John was working as a Labourer.

They were married on 2 October 1878, 10 days before they emigrated from Plymouth.

They came to New Zealand on the ship Fernglen arriving off Nelson on 2 January 1879 along with 250 other government immigrants. As there was no demand for immigrants in Nelson, the ship was telegraphed and moved on to Wellington. They were 54 and 50 at the time. They were accompanied by their six surviving children.

In 1881 they were living in Thompson Street where John was again working as a labourer.

In 1882 Mary was renting rooms out to boarders in their Nairn Street house.

Bankrupted in September 1883. In 1884 he was charged with having driven a cart over the footpath in Willis Street and he was fined 10 shillings. In November he was charged along with his son with the assault of a boy called Florence McCarthy. Defence was on account of Florence having stolen some eggs and a bridle. They were fined 1 shilling. Their daughter Mary won sewing prizes at Te Aro School in 1884 and 1885.

The son Matthew was a member of the Loyal Orange Lodge.

In 1890 John was granted a lease of a small portion of the Town Belt for £10 per annum.

John died in August 1895. His funeral departed his residence in Nairn Street for Karori Cemetery. Mary also died at Nairn Street in 1913, aged 85, from heart failure. “North of England papers please copy”.

Thew Plot

Hester Mary Wise

Hester Mary Wise – our dear mother

We did a story on Hester last year, mostly because we love the name. But couldn’t find out much about her. And we still can’t!

Although Hester doesn’t appear in the newspapers giving us any hint of her day to day life, we thought that she deserved a bit of a face wash. If you want to see the glamourous new Hester for yourself, she’s on the main road through the cemetery. Follow the map / directions in the link below.

We know that she was born Hester Mary Parker, the daughter of John Parker (gardener) and was living on Old Kent Road at the time of her marriage to John Thomas Wise, at St George Camberwell in 1868.

Hester and John then moved to Wales where John worked as a clerk at the Blaenavon Ironworks before he was lured to New Zealand by the Wellington Gas company where he worked for 20 years before retiring to go farming in the Hutt.

Hester died in 1907 and John in 1909.

They had two sons – Walter Edward and Arthur Henry.


Arthur, his wife Louisa and daughter Melva are also interred in this plot.

https://wellington.discovereverafter.com/search-results?search_first=hester&p_fname=&search_last=wise&p_sname=&cemetery=&site=wellington&advanced-search=Search#
Wise Plot

Victoria Howe

The first name on this headstone is Victoria Howe, who died in 1896 aged 47, after a long and painful illness.

Victoria was born (according to family record) on a ship in Wellington Harbour in August 1848. Her parents were William Rowett and Mary Barker and they were married at St Clement Danes, Westminster in February that year. William was working as a servant at the Angel Inn in Wych Street at the time.

But now in Wellington, it was William’s chance to be his own master, and he ran Livery Stables and advertised the hiring of horses and gigs from his premises at the rear of the South Sea Hotel. He was also a jockey in local horse races. Sadly he died in 1853 aged only 29.

Mary remarried John Patti(n)son the following year and their daughter Mary Ann was born in 1856.

In 1867 Victoria married John Howe, a second-generation fellmonger and son of John Howe senior who had arrived in Wellington in 1842. When John senior died in 1877, he left 86 grandchildren. John Howe senior had a dairy farm off Kent Terrace, between Elizabeth and Pirie Streets, and it was here that the John and Victoria’s children were born.

In 1873 Victoria made her Will leaving her estate to her children, once her youngest child had come of age, and the executors of her Will were to be her stepfather John Pattinson, and William Tustin.

Throughout 1874 Victoria was advertising furnished apartments for rent on Kent Terrace, with or without board. An enterprising way to add to family resources.

In 1878, Victoria was advertising for a nurse girl, and again in 1880 for a “useful young girl”. Clearly she had her hands full.  In 1879, John was advertising for his lost black terrier “Fido”.

At Victoria’s death in 1896, John Pattison renounced the execution in Victoria’s will: “I have not intermeddled in the estate … and will not hereafter intermeddle therein with the intent to defraud creditors…”. And as the William Tustin had died 4 years previous, it was her eldest son John Albert Barker Howe who applied for administration of her estate. John Albert was 28 at the time and his younger siblings were Willie Ernest 23, Mary Maud 21,  Leila Martha 17 and Harry Vaughan 16. John Howe took no interest in his wife’s Will.

John Albert went on to state that his three youngest siblings were living with their grandfather John Pattinson and they had no funds of their own for their maintenance and that the eldest of the three, Mary Maud, was an invalid. John Howe  was not in a position to maintain his children and had not for many years past contributed to their support. He had not lived with Victoria for the last five years of her life and was not in custody of the children. Victoria’s estate consisted almost entirely of a house with a net income of about £100 a year.

An Order was then made by the court that the sum of 20 shillings per week may be allowed from the estate for the maintenance of the children.

John Howe died at Wellington Hospital in June 1898, in his 62nd year.

Mary Pattinson died in 1906, aged 80 and John Pattinson in 1910, aged 95! The newspapers noted he had lived under the reigns of George IV, William IV, Victoria, Edwards VII and George V. Both are also interred in this plot.

The plot is also the final resting place of 10 Howe and Pattinson family members.

If you want the map / directions to find this plot, please click on the following link:

https://wellington.discovereverafter.com/search-results?search_first=victoria&p_fname=&search_last=howe&p_sname=&cemetery=&site=wellington&advanced-search=Search
Howe Family Plot

John Priest

accident prone?

John’s arrival in New Zealand was not the most auspicious start. He and his wife Catherine Sinclair, both emigrants from The Shetland Islands were passengers on the immigrant ship “City of Auckland” which became shipwrecked at the Otaki River mouth in 1878. Fortunately there was no loss of life.

In 1887, John’s trap capsized opposite the Petone Town Board quarry, caused by his horse taking fright at a passing train. His sister sustained a serious injury to one of her legs and the load of produce was pretty well destroyed.

In 1890, after returning to his home in Upper Hutt after purchasing prizes for school children, he was in the process of dismounting his horse when it shied. One foot was caught in the stirrup and he was dragged for some distance until the stirrup strap broke. As a result he broke several ribs.

In 1891 he was sued for £200 in damages by William Backrow for false imprisonment. It was alleged that John had caused William to be arrested on a charge of stealing three planks of timber which was afterwards dismissed by the Justice of Peace. After some evidence was given, it was announced the case had been settled with the plaintiff for £30 in satisfaction of his claim.

In 1898, John was standing opposite his front door in Rintoul Street when a cyclist rode by at great speed and without a lamp and knocked him down. Two bones were broken in his left leg. “Worse still, the wheelman remounted and rode away without evening stopping to make enquiries as to the consequences of his carelessness” (EP 2 June 1898).

In 1901 he was fined for leaving his horse and vehicle unattended.

Aside from his mishaps, John worked as a farmer and then became a very busy contractor. He lived at 124 Rintoul Street and was constantly advertising for carpenters, paper hangers and houses for lease.

After Catherine died in 1895, John married Emily Woodland. He left three surviving children. John shares the plot with both of his wives.

Priest family plot

John & Grace Twist

Old residents of Oriental Bay

John was born at Prescot, Lancashire in 1840, the son of a labourer. In 1861 he was working as a joiner in Salford.  He arrived at Lyttelton on the ship Amoor in 1864 and quickly shifted to Wellington.

In 1868 John married Grace Whebby whose parents, Thomas & Edith, had arrived in Wellington on the ship Clifton in 1841. They were from Somerset. Thomas worked as a milkman who lived in Oriental Bay but he died in 1857 and Edith went on to be a leading figure in Oriental Bay affairs. She raised her 8 children alone. In 1865, Edith was charged with a breach of the Scab Act as her sheep were unclean!

John also contributed to the “progress of affairs” in Oriental Bay in the early days. He also laid the telegraph wire with Samuel Brown between Wellington and Masterton. He constructed a large number of buildings in early Wellington and was proclaimed “an expert craftsman” (Evening Post 9 Sept 1914). Later in life he worked in the Public Works department.

In 1893, the Twist house in Hay Street, Oriental Bay burned down. Owing to the high situation of the house, the Brigade were unable to get water up to it. All that could be done was to remove some furniture, including a piano. The house and contents were insured for £300. The property was known as ‘Te Ngaio’ and shortly after the fire, Grace who owned the property, auctioned the bare land off.

In 1895, Grace died. Her funeral departed from their new home at 53 Ghuznee Street. She was 49 years old. Her Will (dated 1891) stated that her piano should go to her daughter Edith. How fortunate it had been saved in the fire!

John died in 1914 aged 74. His funeral left his son’s house at 13 Garden Road, Northland for Karori Cemetery. He was survived by six sons and one daughter.

Grace Twist (Whebby)
Oriental Bay 1890s
Hay Street detail

Frank Batchelor

Francis Raymond Batchelor (Frankie) died 1924 age 2 ½ . He was the only child of Major Francis Roy Batchelor and his wife Helena.

Frankie’s father, Frank, was a member of the Salvation Army. He was born in 1885, in Charleston (West Coast), to Thomas Francis Batchelor and his wife Jane Tierney. Thomas was a farmer at the time.

Frank worked for a while in Queensland, where he likely met his wife Helena Hutton Elliot and married her in 1920. He then took charge of the Vivian Street Men’s Hostel for returned soldiers, and was then manager of the People’s Palace in Christchurch.

After the death of their Frankie in 1924, Frank and his wife ran an orphanage on behalf of the Salvation Army, until Frank’s death in 1934.

A funeral service was conducted at the Vivien Street Citadel (it was very hard to find a photograph of the original building) “…where hymns and other appropriate music was played by the Salvation Army Band, which also played the “Dead March” as the funeral cortege passed through the city streets.” The service was conducted graveside by Commissioner Cunningham. Frank was interred with Frankie.

(Lieutenant) Helena Batchelor died in Queensland in 1943, aged 57 and is buried in Gympie Cemetery.

Ethel Ulrika Adelaide Beu

Sometimes this research is just triggered by an interesting name.

Ethel was the only surviving daughter of John Charles Frederick Beu and his wife Mathilda Nilson.

John was born in 1854 in the Pomerania region, Germany. Back then he was Johann Carl Frederick Beu. Mathilda Nilson was born in Sweden in 1853. It is presumed that Mathilda came to New Zealand by herself, as no record of her parents’ deaths are found here. The pair married in Wellington in 1883.

Their children were Frederick, Edward, Anna (died young), Reinhold, Albert, Otto, Gustav and Ethel.

John became a naturalised citizen in 1885, at which stage he recorded his occupation as Storeman and was living in Martin Square. He later worked as a fruit dealer living in Adelaide Road and was chairman of the South Wellington School Committee and the Rintoul Street School Committee. Peculiarly in 1902, he requested of the Lighting and Fire Brigade Committee not grant his son’s driver’s licence application. He was a member of the Excelsior Lodge of Druids.

John died after a long illness in 1907, aged 53, and was the first to be interred in the plot. Mrs Beu expressed her thanks to the many friends who had shown sympathy, including the Christian Endeavour Societies of the Berhampore Baptist Church.

Ethel died aged 17 at her home, “Stralsund Villa” Berhampore in 1910 after an illness. It wasn’t uncommon for immigrants to name their home after their city of origin and Stralsund is not far from where John was born. Memorials were placed in the newspaper by her “loving mother and brothers” and touchingly Ruby and Hilda Pettersson also inserted one “in remembrance for our dear friend Ethel”.

Of John and Mathilda’s sons, Gustav, Reinhold, Frederick and Otto all served with New Zealand forces in WWI and saw action in Europe. All were discharged unfit for service due to illnesses or injuries contracted during their time in War.

Mathilda died at Wellington Hospital on 4th January 1924, aged 71.

Also interred in this plot are John William Horace Beau, aged 3 months (died 1909), Jane Beu (died 1932) are Barbara Beu (nee Cooke) wife of Frederick (died 1944).

eu plot

Violet King

Haining Street.

We recently shared the story of Yen Yep, a gardener in Haining Street.

Today is the story of Violet King who died Haining Street in 1906, aged 32.

The newspaper covering her death reads “One More Unfortunate”.

Violet was the daughter of George King, a military man who had served in Scotland and India. He married Jane Hall in 1859. George & Jane emigrated in 1861 as part of three regiments arriving on the transport ship “Henry Fernie”, arriving with 692 men and 69 women. In 1866 he was discharged as medically unfit and became a labourer.

George died in January 1894 and in February his son George junior was on trial for assaulting his mother, Jane. Violet was a witness. Jane appeared in Court with her face badly discoloured.

George asked his mother if she had been in Haining Street that night, and she replied that she had, but she “had only had one glass”. Dr Chapple had attended Mrs King and she gave him the impression of being intoxicated, although she denied it. Violet also denied that she was drunk that night but confirmed she was in the habit of smoking cigarettes. The newspaper also reported that there was a Chinaman in the house, who George also struck. His Worship said “here was a case in which the accused had taken another man’s wife into his mother’s house, and when his mother came home he had beaten her face to pulp”. The sentence was six months’ imprisonment with hard labour.

In 1900 Violet was summoned to the Magistrate’s Court herself for wilfully damaging 14 panes of glass at her brother Duncan’s house. Duncan said that she was “the worse for liquor” and when he would not admit her to his home, she “proceed with much vigour and many stones to demolish the windows”. She pleaded guilty and fumed out of the Court, vowing vengeance on her brother.

Jane died on 1 October 1906 and was buried with her husband George in the Public section at Karori Cemetery. Violet died just three months later on 19 December. Her death was put down to chronic alcoholism.

Violet had lived in the Chinese community in Haining Street for 12 years with a man named Wong Now. Following an autopsy, her funeral departed the morgue at Clyde Quay for Karori Cemetery where she was buried in the Public2 section.

Violet’s brother Duncan died in 1913 and was buried in the same plot as Violet. We hope they sorted out their dispute about the broken windows.